Quake update 3 has had accessibility improvements implemented to the game including a number of text chat options.
In an official Bethesda post, the Quake update 3 details accessibility additions front and center for Nightdive’s port. In addition, there have been bug fixes, quality of life improvements, and three new Horde Mode Maps from MachineGames added into the game.
Once Quake update 3 has been installed, players will now receive a notification for accessibility options. These options can also be accessed from the options area at any time through both pause menus and main menus. It’s also mentioned that, by default, all accessibility options will be set to on allowing the player to disable any features they see fit or disable them all with a Disable All Settings toggle.
All of the available Quake accessibility options are detailed in the post, which is wonderful to see. There’s a High Contrast mode that makes the background elements darker, making text clearer. There’s also an alternative typeface to help with legibility, shifting the game’s classic font to a modern one.
Read Chat Out Loud, Transcribe Voice Chat options, and Speak For Me in Voice Chat are other features added to Quake that can help with accessibility. These are essentially text-to-speech and speech-to-text but are presented in a more user-forward way.
Other features are ways to decrease screen flash amounts, the duration that messages are displayed in the center of the screen, and also one for messages in the corner of the screen. Players can adjust how many lines of text are displayed in the “corner print HUD messages” by setting a max number, while also having control over the duration of multiplayer text chat messages being displayed.
In addition to accessibility features, the quality of life updates include taking community feedback on board and making Horde Mode’s Easy mode less difficult and the Hard mode more difficult. Enemy text chat has been changed from red to green to increase contrast and legibility, and online text chat can now be sent from the pause menu.
